


the kind that drowns

by nasa



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Canon, i guess?, nicky loves joe a Lot ok dont speak to me, set after Quynh is captured
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:27:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27419536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nasa/pseuds/nasa
Summary: The first thing Andromache says to them when they find her - sweaty, wearing weeks-old-clothes covered in dirt and blood, her wrists snapped under her shackles - is, “You should have gotten here faster.”Nicolò and Yusuf exchange a look over her body. They weren’t due to meet up with Andromache and Quỳnh for another three years.“Yes,” Nicolò agrees quietly. “We should have been faster.”
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 16
Kudos: 283





	the kind that drowns

The first thing Andromache says to them when they find her - sweaty, wearing weeks-old-clothes covered in dirt and blood, her wrists snapped under her shackles - is, “You should have gotten here faster.”

Nicolò and Yusuf exchange a look over her body. They have been in Rome, for the past several years, enjoying the bustling art scene. Yusuf had joined in occasionally to paint frescos; Nicolò, always so clumsy with a paintbrush, had instead taken the time to finally learn Spanish. Both of them were constantly harangued with love letters and pleas to pose for sculptures. They weren’t due to meet up with Andromache and Quỳnh for another three years.

“Yes,” Nicolò agrees quietly. “We should have been faster.”

The moment Yusuf twists the lock pick in her shackles, Andromache is rising to her feet, her shoulders square. She wavers just a bit on her feet, but when Nicolò reaches out to steady her, she bats his hand away. “It’s been two months,” she says. “She could be anywhere, by now.” She doesn’t sound distraught by the idea. She doesn’t sound particularly angry, either. She sounds - empty. There is nothing in her voice but cold, unfeeling stone.

On their way out of the dungeons, she kills every man whom Nicolò and Yusuf had not - stopping to check the pulse of those knocked out and bloody, looking behind corners for cowards hiding. Nicolò and Yusuf do not stop her. They steal horses from the clergyman and ride far enough into the woods that they will be hard to find when the mob comes searching; then they stop, and set up camp. “You cannot find her tonight,” Nicolò says. “You will search better once you have rested,” Yusuf adds, and Andromache nods once, her hands clenched into fists. She does not speak of her own volition, nor do anything beyond the bare minimum: huddling beside the fire, shoveling bread and dried meat into her mouth. When she sleeps, she does so with her back to them, curled around the empty space at her side. Nicolò lays his palm over Yusuf’s on his stomach and feels sick with the guilt of it.

In the morning, Andromache is up before either of them. Still, she refuses to meet their eyes. “They had accents,” Andromache tells Nicolò, when she sees he is awake. Yusuf wakes, too, at the sound. “I think they’re from north of here. A few towns, maybe.”

“Who?” Yusuf asks, groggy.

“The sailors,” Andromache says, sounding irritated at having to explain herself. “I need to find them first, before they scatter. One of them has to remember where they took her.”

“Okay,” Yusuf agrees, rubbing at his eye with one hand. He was always slow to get moving in the morning; Nicolò had enjoyed it, during the holy wars, when their days often started early and Nicolò would ride into the dawn knowing he had an advantage over his opponent. He enjoyed it still, but now for entirely different reasons.

But not today.

“Do you have a specific town in mind?” Nicolò asks. “Or just North?”

“Three specific towns,” Andromache corrects. “We should split up.”

Yusuf stills beside Nicolò. “I don’t know that that’s wise,” he says carefully. 

Andromache raises an eyebrow. “It’s faster,” she says. “And I thought we already agreed we wasted two months.”

_You wasted two months,_ Nicolò hears. 

“Yes,” Yusuf says, “But if we get _ourselves_ captured trying to help her -“

Andromache huffs. “What, you’re so terrified for yourselves you’re not even going to _try_ to help her?”

Carefully, Nicolò says, “Andromache, that’s not what he’s saying.”

“No, he’s just saying he’s so terrified of being away from you for five _fucking_ seconds that he’s going to make Quỳnh wait longer in the hell she’s stuck in!”

Nicolò clenches his jaw; Yusuf just looks sad. “There are people out there trying to kill you,” Nicolò points out, keeping his voice carefully measured. “Not even just trying to kill you, trying to _capture_ you, and if they do they’ll assign you the exact same fate they assigned her. Yusuf and I as well, if they see us with you. Who do you think we’re going to be able to help, if we’re in their hands? Do you think we can free her if we’re down there with her?”

Andromache’s jaw works.

“He’s right,” Yusuf says softly. “We need to be smart about this. It’s the only way we’re going to get her back.”

Andromache shakes her head and shoves herself to her feet. “Of course you agree with him,” she mutters.

“Andromache -“ Yusuf starts.

“Stop,” she cuts him off before he can continue. “Don’t even fucking try. Fine. We’ll do it your way. But I hope you know that Quỳnh’s at the bottom of a fucking ocean drowning right now, and every minute we waste on safety is another minute she’s dying.”

“Believe me,” Nicolò says. “We know.”

“Then fine,” Andromache says, and turns towards the horses she’d apparently started to load up while Nicolò and Yusuf slept. “On your head be it. Eastleigh first.”

-

Eastleigh is a bust. Andromache doesn’t recognize anybody there, and nobody seems to remember any men going out on a ghost vessel to drop an iron coffin into the ocean. They go to Southamptom next, and get the same treatment. In both towns, they leave after a couple days, when Andromache starts getting strange glances from people who had heard about the twin witches and the second’s escape.

They make their way down towards more coastal towns, even though it takes them further away from the place they were first captured. They try Gosport, then Portsmouth. In between, they stop at half a dozen fishing villages, half a dozen hamlets. Just before Gosport they get lucky, and find a mother who says her son told her a tale about banishing a witch to the ocean; but when pressed, she’s not able to give any details other than terrified stammering about how her son’s always told tall takes, anyway. 

One week passes, then two. Soon, it’s been six months, and they start running out of places to visit. Each night, Andromache winds tighter, like a crossbow being winched to shoot. Nicolò doesn’t know how to act around her anymore. She feels like a stranger - like someone has occupied the body of his dear friend Andromache - and speaking to her feels like tripping around, blindfolded, on a bed of broken glass.

Perhaps it should be no surprise, then, that it eventually comes to blows when, in Brighton, Nicolò says, “Perhaps we should try the Isle of Wight.”

They’re in an inn - a rare indulgence, taken only because it was granted to them for free: on their way into town the day before, Yusuf had pushed a young boy out of the way of a rabid dog. He got bit for his troubles, but Nicolò and Andromache managed to subdue it, and now they are the town heroes, granted the pleasure of two rooms in a half-full inn overnight. It’s nice, to have a night of creature comforts, but it comes at the cost of anonymity. They’ll have to leave Brighton sooner than they anticipated, perhaps before they finish conducting their search. Andromache is displeased.

“The Isle of Wight might be a good choice," Yusuf agrees. He dunks the stale heel of a loaf of bread into his mostly-empty stew bowl. “Lots of sailors, there. Someone might know something.”

“And we could go back to Bournemouth while we’re in the area,” Nicolò adds. “There was that man - the vicar, whose son was a sailor, we never did follow up on -“

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Andromache slams her hands down on the table, making the spoons clatter against their bowls. Nicolò goes silent; beside him, Yusuf stops chewing, mouth still half-stuffed with bread. “It’s useless. It’s fucking useless. We’re too fucking late.”

Nicolò swallows hard. He has no idea what to say - he’s even more off-guard than usual, the three of them in public, on what Nicolò had thought was a good day. He looks to Yusuf, who, always the braver among them, is the one to say, “We don’t know that yet. It’s only been a few months. There’s still a chance -“

“A few months? A few months!” Andromache’s voice is rising, drawing a few stares, but she doesn’t seem to notice, nor care. “It’s been almost a year, Yusuf. A _year,_ at the bottom of the fucking ocean. And we’re not closer to finding her than we were at the beginning. We have absolutely no fucking clue -“

“There are still leads -“ Yusuf tries.

“Leads? Please! There’s nothing. It’s all dried up. And why? Because I couldn’t escape? Because you were too late?”

“Andromache,” Yusuf says warningly.

She continues as if she hasn’t heard him. “If you had been here,” she says, and her gaze falls on Nicolò, “If _you_ hadn’t wanted to split up, then this might never have happened!”

“ _Andromache,_ that’s enough,” Yusuf says, voice cold and firm in the way it so rarely gets. But it’s too late: Nicolò knows, now. Of course Andromache, six-thousand-years-old and Nicolò’s companion for centuries, would be able to see right through him. Her eyes are dark and beady where they’re fixed on Nicolò’s. “It’s pointless,” she declares again. “She's gone.”

_Because of you._

Nicolò’s chair squeals against the floor as he pushes back from the table. “Nicolò,” Yusuf starts, but Nicolò just shakes his head. He moves towards the door, fast enough to escape but not fast enough to draw attention. Someone else will finish his meal. Someone else will make their excuses to the innkeeper, someone else will explain to the eavesdropping crowd, someone else will -

He slips into his and Yusuf’s room, with the small bed in the corner, their rucksacks tucked under the pillows. For a moment, he is painfully, stupidly grateful that the innkeeper had insisted on giving Andromache a separate room, despite their claims that one would suffice. It’s a blessing, a bit of forethought Nicolò had not thought to have: he’s not sure he can face her tonight, nor tomorrow.

There are footsteps outside the door, and then the creak of wood. Nicolò knows their weight; he doesn’t turn. “She didn’t mean it,” Yusuf says.

“Shut the door,” Nicolò says. There’s the sound of a lock clicking. “She did mean it.”

“She’s just upset, that doesn’t mean she -“

Nicolò turns, and knows from the way Yusuf’s shoulders sag that his eyes are red. “She meant exactly what she said, Yusuf. And I don’t blame her. She’s right. It is my fault.”

“It is _not -_ “

“I was the reason we were in Italy,” Nicolò interrupts. “I was the one who didn’t want to come to England. They asked us, and I said no.”

“You said no _for me,_ ” Yusuf says, “because I hate these northern countries -“

“No, I said no for _me._ Because _I_ hate how they treat you, here!” Nicolò yells back. He stops, forces himself to take a breath. “You, hating this place? Please. You don’t hate anything. If it had just been you, you would’ve gone. You would’ve thought it was an adventure, I know you would’ve. _I,_ I was the one who wanted to stay in Rome. I was the one who said - ” Nicolò closes his eyes, shakes his head. “And you call me selfless.”

There’s a beat of silence. When Yusuf speaks again, his voice is low. “I don’t know that your love for me can be called selfish.”

“No? Then what of my relief?” Nicolò opens his eyes and meets Yusuf’s gaze. His vision is blurry. “It consumes me. Every morning that I wake, and see you beside me - every night when I fall asleep in your arms - it’s all I can feel. The only thing. I am just so - despite everything, I am so _glad_ it wasn’t you.”

Yusuf looks stunned, like a fish thrown against the side of a boat. He opens his mouth as though to speak, but abruptly, Nicolò is ashamed - for what he has done, for what he has said, to reduce his brave, outspoken Yusuf to this. “I’m sorry,” he says, before Yusuf has a chance to talk, “Yusuf, I -“

“Stop,” Yusuf says, and then he’s crossing the space between them to place his hand on Nicolò’s jaw. Nicolò leans into it as hard as he dares. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Nicolò.”

“I don’t know what I’d do,” Nicolò says, half-desperate. His eyes rake across Yusuf’s face. He feels as though he’s memorized it, after over four hundred years, but has he, really? There must be something he’s taken for granted, something he’s overlooked; something he would forget, if Yusuf was gone. That strange cowlick, in the middle of his left eyebrow? The tiny cleft of a scar on his upper lip, from a horseback accident when he was a boy? The particular pattern of the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes, pressed from laughter, Nicolò’s own sun.

“You don’t have to,” Yusuf says, but Nicolò feel half out of his body, and he doesn’t know if Yusuf means he doesn’t have to know, or if he doesn’t have to say this. He has to say this.

“You are everything to me,” he says. He wishes he were as poetic as Yusuf; Yusuf deserves beauty. But all Nicolò has is the truth. “I - I would not be me if I lost you. I would be, I would be the heathen that you first met. So lost, and angry, and -“

“Nicolò,” Yusuf says, eyes shining.

“You are the sun of my world,” Nicolò tells him, feeling tears drip down his own cheeks. “Without you, there would only be darkness. I can’t lose you, Yusuf. I can’t.”

Yusuf kisses him. His lips are warm and his touch is gentle and Nicolò lets himself close his eyes and sink into it. Into Yusuf, who smells like water and earth, cardamom and salt, sweat and skin. Yusuf, who has let Nicolò touch him everywhere: the delicate soles of his feet, the crease of his groin, the terrifying spot where his pulse meets skin. Yusuf, who Nicolò could find blind and deaf in a room of a thousand bodies.

“You’re not going to lose me,” Yusuf whispers, his voice shaky. “Nicolò. I’m right here.”

“I love you,” Nicolò says. “You know that, don’t you? You know that I -“

“Of course I know. Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I -“ Yusuf shakes his head, and Nicolò catches a tear with his thumb before it can reach the corner of his lips. “Nicolò.”

“I would never forgive myself,” Nicolò whispers.

Yusuf pulls him close, then, so that their bodies are pressed against each other, chest-to-chest, hip-to-hip.

“There is nothing to forgive,” Yusuf tells him, his forehead pressed to Nicolò’s. His breath flutters over Nicolò’s bare throat. “We are both here. We are both safe. And we are going to stay safe. You are going to stay here, with me. Because I will not allow God to part us.”

Nicolò’s eyes burn. He presses them shut. “We are safe,” he repeats.

“Yes, Nicolò.”

“I will stay here with you.”

“Yes.”

“Because we will not allow God to part us.”

“Yes, Nicolò. _Yes._ ”

Nicolò nods, his forehead rubbing against Yusuf’s. “Stay here with me,” he says, and Yusuf laughs, a humorless thing.

“Where else would I go?”

-

They spend the night curled together in bed. Once they lay down, Nicolò will not move them, even as night falls thickly outside and the raucous voices from the tavern downstairs grow louder; even as Nicolò’s eyes grow heavy, and Yusuf’s breaths slow; even as the sky pinks and the rooster starts to crow. Nicolò holds Yusuf tight to him, his fingers on Yusuf’s delicate pulse, and he prays all night to every God he can imagine might exist. _Please,_ he begs, _I will do anything you ask of me. I will do everything you ask of me. Just don’t take him from me. Don’t hurt him. Please. He’s too beautiful to hurt. He’s too kind._

-

In the morning, Andromache is curt and stiff, as much or more as she had been the day before. But Nicolò doesn’t miss the deep purple bruises under her eyes, nor the way her fingers shake as saddles up her horse. She and Quỳnh had never slept like he and Yusuf did, so twisted together, but they did always lay in the same bed, soft lines beside each other, and some part of them - an ankle or wrist or thick braid of hair - was always touching.

Nicolò imagines he would sleep poorly, in a cold bed.

Yusuf makes a face, when he sees her, like he has some sharp remark to make, but all it takes is a gentle hand from Nicolò on Yusuf’s shoulder and he is falling back with a sigh. Nicolò watches Andromache follow the movement; Nicolò doesn’t care. He will do a lot for Andromache, for his only remaining sister, but even for her, he won’t do this.

It is two days later, when they are deep in the English countryside, that Nicolò wakes by the fire and Yusuf is gone. Andromache is poking at the dying embers with a stick. “Yusuf went to bathe,” she tells him. Nicolò glances back over his shoulder, towards the area of woods in which they’d seen a clear stream the previous morning, but of course he can’t see it through the trees. “I’m sorry.”

For a split second, Nicolò thinks she’s apologizing for Yusuf, and is horribly confused - why would it be a problem, Yusuf bathing? - before he realizes what she’s talking about. “It’s fine,” he says, but she shakes her head, her eyes stuck on her ash-covered stick.

“I was out of line.” Her voice is tight, like she’s being forced to say this. “I apologize. It won’t happen again.”

Nicolò considers her for a moment, her tight shoulders, diverted gaze. “Thank you,” he says, finally, and she nods and tosses her stick down and pushes herself to her feet.

“I’m going to pack everything up,” she says. “We have thirty minutes until dawn. You should bathe now, if you want to before we go.”

Once, Nicolò would have thought he was perfectly clean, but centuries with Yusuf, the most hygienic man Nicolò has ever met, has proved otherwise. Down at the stream, Yusuf is naked, floating on his back. He drops down into the water when he hears Nicolò coming. “Good morning,” he says, tone cautious in a way Nicolò wouldn’t recognize if he didn’t know Yusuf so well. Nicolò shakes his head, sheds his clothes as quickly as he can, and wades straight into the water to catch Yusuf’s waist in his hands and kiss him, searing and hot.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, when they part. Yusuf clings with one wet hand to Nicolò’s dry wrist.

“I didn’t do anything,” he says. Nicolò shakes his head, but doesn’t bother to argue.

“I love you,” he says instead. Yusuf ducks and presses a kiss to his collarbone.

“Of course you do,” he agrees. “As I love you. Oh, Nico. You have to know it is just the same for me, don’t you?” and Nicolò knows that they are no longer speaking only of love.

“Yes,” Nicky sighs, pressing his cheek to Yusuf’s hair. “Yes, I know.”

He and Yusuf stay there together another moment, bodies pressed together, bridging the gap between water and air - and then, abruptly, before Nicolò knows what is happening, Yusuf presses him down with a hand on the top of his head. It’s so sudden that Nicolò doesn’t resist the movement, and in a moment, he has Nicolò dunked entirely underwater. The cold seizes Nicolò’s lungs harder than he would have expected, and he surfaces, gasping, to Yusuf’s overwhelming smile.

“Your hair is dirty,” Yusuf says, “You should really make sure to wash -“

He’s cut off when Nicolò tugs him under, too. He’s already wet; he recovers faster, splashing up laughing.

“I’ll wash my hair if you help me,” Nicolò bargains, and Yusuf threads his fingers through Nicolò’s hair.

“I suppose I could be persuaded,” he agrees, and Nicolò pulls him close under the water, letting Yusuf wrap his legs around Nicolò’s waist, holding his weight. He is lovely, so warm, so soft, so strong. _Please, God,_ Nicolò thinks, closing his eyes as Yusuf trickles handfuls of water over his hair. _Please, not him._

**Author's Note:**

> why did I write this when i'm literally planning a big bang on nearly the same topic? I don't know! don't look at me. it's been a weird week, okay?
> 
> title from a quote by Sabaa Tahir: “There are two kinds of guilt: the kind that drowns you until you’re useless, and the kind that fires your soul to purpose.”
> 
> find me on tumblr at joeandnicky.tumblr.com


End file.
